DISCOURSE II. 7ú lion and good works, for those higher services of heaven. Since he can trust the promises of the gospel, and has had some small foretaste of these pleasures, he knows that the actions and em- ployments, the businesses and the joys of the upper world, are incomparably superior to any thing here on earth, and free front all the uneasy and defiling circumstances of this life. He is awake to receive this change : He rejoices in his removal, from world to world : His vital and active powers are ready for the business of paradise, and he opens his heart to take in the joy. VII: Death makes its approaches, oftentimes, and seizes us in such a manner as to give no room for prayers or repentance, then the blessedness of the watchful soul appears, that if lie is carried out of the world and time, in such a surprizing way, he is safe for eternity. Sometimes the messenger of death stops all our thoughts and actions, at once, by a lethargic stroke, or confounds them all by the delirious rovings of a fever ; the light of reason is eclipsed and darkened, the powers, of the mind are all obstructed, or the languishingsof nature have so enfeebled them, that either we cannot exercise them to any spiritual purposes, or the are forbid to do it, for fear of counter working the physician, in - creasing the malady, and hastening our death. 'l'hus we are not capable of making any new preparation for the important work of dying; we can make use of none of the means of grace, nor do any thing more to secure an interest in the love of God, the salvation of Christ, and the blessings of heaven. This is a very dismal thought indeed. But the watchful 4hristian bath this blessedness, that he is fit to receive the sen- tence of death in any form ; nor lethargies, nor deliriums, nor languors of nature can destroy the seed of grace and religion in the heart, which were sown there in the days of health ; nor can any of the formidable attendants of death cancel his former tran- sactions with God and Christ about his immortal concerns. That great and momentous work was done before death appeared, or, any of its attendants. He was not so unwise as to leave matters of infinite importance, at that dreadful hazard : He is not now to begin to seek after a lost God, nor to begin his repentance for past sins ; He is not now a stranger at the throne of grace, nor beginning to learn to pray : He is not now commencing his ac- quaintance with Jesus Christ, his Saviour, in the midst of 'a tumult and hurry of thoughts and fears; nor are the works of faith, and love, and holiness to be now begun. Dreadful work indeed, and infinitely hazardous ! To begin to be convinced of sin on the borders of death, and to make our first enquiries after God and heaven upon the very brink of hell ! To begin to ask for pardon when we can live in sin no longer ; to cry out, Jesus, save me, when the waves'of the wrátb of God are breaking in
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